I just read a Guardian piece about film director Kevin Smith getting removed from a flight for being overweight. Apparently he ‘tweeted’ about the event, and his 1.64 million followers went into a lather on his behalf, forcing the airline to make an awkward apology.
The weight issue aside… 1.64 million followers?! Wow, I’m overwhelmed at having over 800 on Twitter. I’m grateful that so many people can put up with my smatterings of thought and my show-and-tell moments with creative projects, and I hope they get something halfway useful out of it in return, if only some entertainment.
…And I’m hyper-conscious of how I use outlets like Twitter, so I try to stick to some fundamental rules:
- Don’t stray too far off-topic from writing, bookbinding, and publishing. If it’s likely to offend people (like complaining about the Pope’s upcoming trip to the UK, a recent temptation) keep your yap shut. That’s not what people follow me to hear.
- Be nice/don’t be mean. Yeah, I might get in a clever wise-crack, but ultimately I’m the one who winds up looking like a dick.
- Don’t recycle too much of other people’s content. If something’s really fascinating or would be missed, sure, I’ll repost/retweet/rewhatever it, but I know I ‘unfollow’ people who do nothing but root through others’ bins and reuse what they find.
- Don’t be too self-promotional. For every piece of content that asks people to do something for me (like read about me or my work, look at something I’ve made, or consider buying something I’ve made), I have to provide three more that are entertaining just in themselves, or that provide something useful to them.
- Be human/don’t be a show-off. It’s great to have an outlet for cheering about my wins, but I realise from my own experience that the most compelling posts are often those in which someone admits a limitation or a mistake. If all someone ever does is crow about their greatness — well, they don’t really need my attention, because they seem to be able to give themselves plenty. But when we share the whole process, there’s room to learn from each other, and to feel more empathy.
So those are my rules (which, until this moment, have been mostly unconscious), and they seem to be working to keep people interested in what I’m up to, and keep me from annoying them too much.
And these are the operant words for me: what I’m up to.
Facebook is truly social media: for me, it’s about real-world relationships. Twitter is about people who are involved in the same things I am, who are way out in front with them, or who are just starting to learn about them. It’s a “community of interest”.
One of the great features of Twitter is that it breaks down so many barriers: if there’s someone in your field you admire, there’s a good chance they’re on it.
But this is where it gets dicey: When you’ve got 1.64 million followers, you’re not in a conversation anymore, you’re in a star/fanclub arrangement. There are people on Twitter whose work I like, and some of them write very funny or clever things on there, but whenever I’ve wavered and added them, I soon end up unfollowing them, because I find myself in one of those icky, non-reciprocal situations. You know you’ve fallen down that hole when you reply to one of the star’s messages, hoping to catch their attention and feeling miffed when you never get a response (yet another silly Internet waste of emotion I’m better off without, like message board arguments).
So my big, ultimate rule with social media is that I’m only interested in two-way conversations. By that same token, I want to be available to the 800 people who’ve been so generous as to give me their attention. (I just can’t believe they actually stay with it; even odder to me is that so many remain silent.)
Maybe there’s a point of diminishing returns where you can’t actually keep up with it (say, 1.63 million followers). So what then? Do you leave? I’m not sure.
It’s not that I think those people shouldn’t be on Twitter, but… well, I think celebrity entertainment is spiritually radioactive, so I guess I’ll never understand what people get out of it. At that point on Twitter, you’re not conversing, you’re broadcasting.
Hey, it’s wonderful that a broadcast platform is now available to anyone with a computer. And that platform can grow without limits, whether because of empty famousness or meritorious content. As AJ Leibling said, “Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one.” Well, AJ, now we all own one. But I’m much more interested in the power of the ‘net to deliver real, accessible experiences and conversations than yet more closed, hyper-mediated ones.
There’s a lot of pressure on creative people these days to be a “brand” and to use social media as a marketing tool. We get tons of advice about how to constantly work the system in the hopes of selling more books (or whatever tchotchkes we’re hucking on our sites or Etsy or wherever). On the one hand, it’s brilliant to be able to reach your audience directly. It closes that loop of being understood and appreciated for our work, yet it can become such an obsessive time-sink that we end up spending every moment desperately trying to keep that beach ball of attention in the air — so much so that we neglect to create new work.
It’s a tricky balance, and I haven’t figured it out yet. Case in point: it’s time to turn off the computer and go make dinner… Just as soon as I post a link to this on Twitter.
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